


Touch of the Reaper

by shinymailbox



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Angst, Fear of Death, Gen, Mortality, Spoilers, mild shulk/fiora, no beta we die like men, though it’s really more implied than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28387434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinymailbox/pseuds/shinymailbox
Summary: Fiora knows better than anyone else that the end comes for us all. This doesn’t mean that it’s easy for her to accept, however.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Touch of the Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> good afternoon xenoblade fans I have a lot of feelings(tm). fiora deserves better
> 
> **IMPORTANT CW**: this entire fic revolves around death/fear of death, so please consider reading something else if you think that would make you uncomfortable!

The first sign of imminent shutdown is a slow loss of fine motor skills, followed by the loss of full control of the limbs. After this, an intense and persistent feeling of tiredness, irregular patterns of breathing, inability to regulate internal temperature, and an increasingly slow heart rate. At the end comes death.

Fiora is remarkably afraid of this for someone who’d already experienced death once; or perhaps it’s the familiarity with it that has amplified her fear. They’d decided to use one of the currently unoccupied houses in Colony 6 to rest for the past few nights. Fiora stands in the kitchen stirring a pot of vegetable soup. Her friends and family are engaged in quiet but lively conversation at the table. 

Her fingers on the hand that isn’t focused on cooking curl and straighten repeatedly, just so she knows that she can still move them. It doesn’t feel different from before, which makes sense; it hasn’t been very long since she lost Meyneth, after all. The movement became instinct after a while. She’d clench her fingers to calm herself down after fighting, or while talking to a friend, or shopping. And now, while she’s cooking. Every repetition of the movement sends a wave of relief through her, accompanied with a hint of dread every time her fingers straighten out.

After all, each new time has a chance to be the one where she struggles. The beginning of the end. It’s unavoidable, just a matter of waiting for it to happen. Fiora puts the spoon in her other hand to her lips before stopping, remembering what Linada and Vanea warned her about ingesting things other than water. She’ll need to get someone else to taste-test it.

Shulk, Reyn and Dunban are out of the question immediately, since she knows they wouldn’t be able to critique her work while she’s trapped in this body. She doesn’t know Sharla and Riki as well as the others, but she’d trust them if she didn’t know someone else more qualified for the job. Melia. There’s no reason for her to doubt she’ll get a straight and honest answer from Melia. She puts the spoon down and turns around, still using every moment to just move her fingers.

“Melia?” she calls to the table where the group is currently seated. “Can you come over for a second?” 

The High Entia girl nods, and she doesn’t seem tense about being called. “Of course,” she replies, getting up out of her seat and walking to join Fiora. “What do you need?”

Fiora picks a ladle off of the counter and fills it with soup. “I need you to tell me if this needs more salt.” Melia nods, and her arm moves slightly to grab the ladle from Fiora, but Fiora just brings it to Melia’s lips herself, much to the High Entia girl’s surprise. She takes a quick sip.

“Perhaps it could use a little,” is her verdict. She most definitely knows why she’s been called over, but she seems to be treating this as if it’s just a chef simply wanting the perspective of another. Fiora puts the ladle back and swiftly moves to grab a salt shaker. Her hands work normally, and she’s able to shake the container without difficulty. Finally, she grabs the ladle again and has Melia taste the soup.

“Yes, that was it,” the High Entia girl says, smiling. “It’s even more delicious.”

“Thanks so much, Melia.”

“Any time,” Melia replies earnestly, turning to go back to the conversation with the rest of the group. Fiora stops her. 

“Oh, it’s done, so you can have some now,” she says, giggling when everyone else perks up as soon as they overhear her say the word “done.” And later, when she’s stopping Reyn from overfilling his bowl, stacking books from a shelf underneath the legs of Riki’s chair so he can easily reach the table, enjoying the incredible praise her soup gets from Shulk and Dunban—she isn’t thinking about shutting down. Her fingers move in the same patterns as they have been, but she’s not thinking about them. For a brief moment, she’s allowed to forget.

—————————

Sleep conserves energy. The energy Fiora has is finite, and it’s used up more quickly when she’s awake. And yet she finds herself unable to fall asleep.

She knows for sure, every second, that she can still move her fingers perfectly fine. The issue lies in the fact that she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to in the morning. Though she’s memorized every single step leading up to the end, she doesn’t know how much time there is between each one. For all that she knows, she could have years from the first sign of loss of fine motor control or she could have hours. She’s terrified to wake up and realize she can’t move her arms or legs. She’s terrified that she might not wake up at all.

Death had already come for her once, though she doesn’t remember what the actual moment was like. It had been fast. She’d been so full of adrenaline that she’d only really processed what was going on for a few seconds before her abdomen was pierced by bladed claws. There was no buildup; she wasn’t aware when she woke up that day that she was going to die young. She rarely thought of the fact of her own death for the entirety of her life before the attack. It was so much easier to sleep at night when she didn’t think twice about the unpredictability of life and death.

Sharla and Melia are already fast asleep on the bed. They’d offered sole use of the bed to Fiora but she’d declined on the basis that mattresses aren’t really all that comfortable for her in her mechanical body. That, and warm surfaces or blankets make her body have to expend more precious energy to keep her internal components cool. She’s fine with just a pillow on the floor.

Back before the incident at the Mechonis Core, she had Meyneth to provide her with company on the nights she spent sleepless. Her presence became a comfort. Back then, when their little group had to make camp and they’d all slept under the open sky together, it had been easier for her to deal with the uncertainty of her circumstance. With everyone together, she was never alone with her own thoughts if she didn’t want to be.

She had Dunban to comfort her on those nights, just like when she was a little girl. Since they’ve been spending a lot of time in houses at night recently, they’ve been in separate rooms, and that seems almost a world away. It would be easy for her to walk to his room, but Fiora doesn’t want to disturb him; he deserves sleep more than she thinks she needs his company.

Other nights Shulk would cuddle up next to her, and his presence would make the anxiety melt from her body. It couldn’t have been very comfortable laying against cold metal, but he’d never seemed to be bothered by that at all. He was, and still is, so optimistic about her situation. Back then when he’d reassured her on the beach that everything would turn out alright, she’d wanted to truly believe that with every inch of her being just like he did. But it’s getting hard, without Meyneth around, for Fiora to have much hope.

She hears light footsteps downstairs, which are probably Shulk’s; he’s been staying up later and later at night recently. Fiora contemplates walking downstairs as well, just to be in his company and have her fears leave her even if it’s only temporarily. But she doesn’t want to bother him, whatever it is he’s doing, and getting up to walk when she doesn’t have to might mean expending energy. Energy she can’t afford to use if she wants to see their mission through to the end with her own eyes.

There’s also the fact that she doesn’t think she wants him to be around if she starts the process of shutting down. She’s definitely thought about when the ideal time for such a thing to happen would be (she wants to hold out at least until this mess with Zanza is all over) but she knows that, realistically, it’s entirely possible and even likely that it’ll happen sooner than that. There’s a non-zero chance that in the next five seconds she’ll begin to feel numbness in her fingers. 

He’s naturally curious too, and although she knows he wouldn’t pry about it, he’d overthink and worry if he knew she was having trouble getting to sleep. She doesn’t want him to find out about what’s going to happen to her just yet. Can’t distract him from the more important fight ahead of them. Can’t let him stop her from fighting alongside everyone. She’s going to die sooner than later. She’d rather do so fighting for a better future for the ones she loves. Even if she might never get to see that future herself.

Fiora’s eyelids droop, her need to rest beginning to outweigh her anxiety. It’s late. The finger she’d been tapping lightly against the floor in rhythm with the ticking of the room’s clock slows down before it stops.

**Author's Note:**

> whether this takes place in canon or an alternate ending is up to your interpretation :) though I initially wrote it as her surviving as per canon bc I think she deserves to
> 
> please be gentle, I’m shy as hell


End file.
